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Overwatch will get free heroes and maps after release

When it was revealed that Overwatch was going to be a full price title instead of, as is the way of many online games, going free-to-play, it was for some, a bit of a disappointment.

But for those worried that the upcoming team-based shooter will devolve into a morass of microtransactions and paid DLC, then rest easy: Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan confirmed that all new heroes and maps released after launch will be free. “We have ideas for additional maps and heroes that we’d like to add to the game, so we’ve thought about this and decided the best way to add them to the game is to patch them in as free content and not as DLC,” he said in a developer update video.

Now, this statement doesn’t eliminate the possibility of microtransactions (e.g. cosmetic items and gameplay boosts) but at the very least it guarantees that the community won’t be split between the gameplay haves and have nots. When all teams have access to the same heroes and maps as everyone else, that’s a good thing.